by Marc Raimondi, Special for USA TODAY Sports

by Marc Raimondi, Special for USA TODAY Sports

NEW YORK - Why New York? Masahiro Tanaka gave the answer every Yankees fan wanted to hear.

"I've heard this place can be very harsh to you at times," Tanaka said through an interpreter. "I just wanted to put myself in this environment and try to see where I can get to with my ability."

The money probably didn't hurt either.

The Yankees introduced their newest high-priced Japanese import Tuesday at a press conference at Yankee Stadium. Tanaka will make $155 million over seven years and the buzz around his signing was nearly as stout. The Yankees said his press conference was the team's biggest since they signed Hideki Matsui in 2003 â?? in other words, larger than anything involving that Alex Rodriguez guy.

"The Boss would be proud," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said of the late owner. "This is Yankee big. This is Steinbrenner big."

Tanaka seems to be embracing the pageantry. According to reports, he flew in on a massive, $195,000 private charter â?? with just his wife, dog and three other people. Then he stood up in front of a room of around one hundred media members with cameras beaming his likeness to millions and said in English: "Hello, I'm Masahiro Tanaka. I'm very happy to be a Yankee."

Tanaka explained there weren't many choices of planes and he was concerned about his "condition" on such a long flight, so he wanted to make himself as comfortable as possible. Why not when you're making $22 million a year, right? He also mentioned that he and his wife have already started looking for apartments in Manhattan. He won't be moving out to the suburbs â?? he's going to be right in the thick of things.

"I wanted to come here and win a championship," Tanaka said. "The Yankees are a team that's always in that type of situation. I understand there's a lot of pressure here. I just wanted to come here and see how far I could go."

Yankees president Randy Levine said when he met with Tanaka in Los Angeles he spoke about other teams wanting him to adjust gradually.

"He didn't like that," Levine said. "He wanted to take the ball from Day One and that told us a lot about him."

Tanaka, 25, went 24-0 last season with a 1.27 ERA for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. He's a star in Japan and has been in the spotlight since leading his high school team to a national championship. The Eagles made him their first-round draft pick in 2006 and he was their ace throughout his tenure.

"He's been on the big stage over there," Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner said. "Not every Japanese player that's come over to play baseball has been on the big stage, in the big games as much as him. I'm not worried about him."

There are plenty of other things to worry about, after all. The Yankees have vaulted over their target $189 million payroll. They're over $200 million and still looking at some combination of Brian Roberts, Kelly Johnson and Brendan Ryan in their infield. As Cashman put it, it'll be Johnson and "a cast of characters" competing for the third-base job.

"The way things are, every team has issues," Steinbrenner said. "We have to work through them."